general
revelry and mirth.
The city has been five times bombarded, twice reduced to ashes, and
three times taken by assault and pillaged.
To-day, it has recovered from all these disasters and takes its place as
one of the most brilliant of the smaller commercial centres of the Rhine
valley, though for that matter Heidelberg is situated some little
distance from the river itself.
Of Heidelberg's population of perhaps twenty-five thousand souls, nearly
one-third are Catholics, an exceedingly large proportion for a German
town.
St. Peter's, the most ancient of Heidelberg's churches, contains many
tombs of the Electors. In 1693 Melac and his soldiers, after having
thrown to the winds, at Speyer, the ashes of the emperors, rummaged
about here in the church of St. Peter, and tore the bones of the nobles
from their leaden caskets, throwing them broadcast in the streets. A
Frenchman who remarked upon this sacrilege forgot that his own
countrymen did the same at St. Denis's a hundred years later.
The principal church edifice of the city is St. Esprit's. Its
architecture belongs to the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, though
it cannot be described as belonging to any precise style. Its interior
is divided into two parts, which, curiously enough, were devoted to two
distinct sects, the choir being consecrated to the Catholics and the
nave being occupied by the Protestants. Jerome of Prague, a disciple of
John Huss, harangued his believers in this church in times contemporary
with that of Huss himself.
In the midst of the market-place is a statue of the Virgin, and facing
the north side of the church is a house dating from 1492, known to-day
by the sign of the Chevalier zum Ritter. Among the numerous ornaments of
this fine mediaeval dwelling-house is to be noted the following
inscription:
"_Si Jehova non edificet domum, frustra laborant oedificantes eam V.
S. CXXVII.--Soli Deo gloria et perstat invicta Venus._"
The University of Heidelberg, as presumably all readers of guide-books
know, is the most ancient and the most celebrated in Germany. It was
founded by Robert I. in 1386. Luther gave his dissertation here in 1515,
hence, so far as its connection with religious matters goes, it is of
great importance.
Its library was one of the most precious in Europe, but Tilly, who
headed the Bavarians who entered Heidelberg in 1622, presented the
greater part of it to Pope Leo XI. The valuable books and manuscripts
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